


Cookie

by stationlittle



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 10:14:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12340659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stationlittle/pseuds/stationlittle
Summary: Miranda and Jack buy a cat.





	Cookie

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @erughostcat, a good friend who picked the type of cat Miranda and Jack would own and named it ;) I hope you like it. 
> 
> Thank you @bardofheartdive for betaing this for me. All remaining mistakes are mine :)
> 
> If you're curious, Cookie looks like this : https://78.media.tumblr.com/b3de7431f9e77273d6188a90fa2c155d/tumblr_messaging_ox2r5woJ8R1tc36jv_1280.png

The meeting had lasted longer than Miranda thought it would. It had been exhausting: hours of discussions with no solutions in sight. By the time Jack had joined her, she had been this close to murder someone AND had been quite sure she would have gotten off for justifiable homicide.

"You okay?" Jack asked her.

She told Jack about Serina, the asari who refused to listen to her, and Aggo, the salarian who kept reminding everyone she used to be Cerberus.

"It's frustrating. I can't barely say anything before they cut me off. Doesn't matter I proved myself since then."

"They would rather go after someone who knows what they're doing than admit they know jack shit."

"Is that a compliment?" she said in return, which made Jack smirk at her.

"Say cheerleader, are we a team or are we not?"

She was hard to resist, Miranda thought, which probably explained why they were together despite the odds. And though the question was more or less rhetorical, Miranda answered anyway.

"We are," she said. "We're a team."

Jack smiled and bumped her shoulder into hers. "Good, then. So I've got your back and you've got mine."

It was new and it left her feeling a bit raw at times. Miranda worried about the fragility of it all. She needed reassurance this was long term - that they were in for the long haul - but she had no idea how to ask.

She thought about this as they walked in one of the damaged areas of the Citadel, still being repaired. They were refugees, allowed back on the station after they reopened the wards. There was already the usual activity there: people bartering, shops opening, officials haggling over the cost of a repair, neon signs flickering on and temporary shelters offering solace.

"Wait," Jack said, as they passed one of those shelters. "Is that what I think it is?"

"What?" Miranda asked.

"It is!" Jack exclaimed.

She left Miranda's side and rushed to the shelter. That's when Miranda saw them: fat and hairy creatures lounging around and making cute noises. Cats from Earth.

An alarm rang in her head. She knew Jack had a soft spot for them.

"Jack!"

"Come on cheerleader! We can at least look!"

She followed Jack to the shelter. Some of the cats looked terrified, even more so by all the attention paid to them, as a group stared at them.

They must have had owners who died during the Reaper War. Perhaps some of them were in the Citadel during the attack and managed to survive. They all looked worse for the wear, now that Miranda could see them up close. She felt pity for those creatures. Next to her, Jack got quiet, like she was thinking the same thing.

There was one box full of grown cats. One of them was sitting in a corner by itself, ignoring people as if they weren’t worth its attention. Miranda stared at it, noticing how huge it was and the hair. _The hair_. It would be a nightmare to clean her space if she bought it.

Wait, what?

What was she thinking? No, she couldn't. She was terrible with animals. She couldn't get a cat.

Jack was staring at it too.

"It looks angry," she said. "I would be angry too. Fucking Reapers."

Angry and majestic.

She and Jack exchanged a glance.

"No," Miranda said. "That's out of the question!"

"Miranda, come on! Look at it! We could give it a home."

"We don't even have a home," Miranda replied, a hint of exasperation showing.

They each had their own place and that was it. They hadn't really talked about living together. Miranda had thought about bringing up the topic but as usual, she had been too scared to upset the balance.

"Then let's get a home!" Jack said.

"What?"

She stared at Jack. She didn't look like she was joking. She looked dead serious.

"You want us to get a place together? To buy this cat?"

Jack rolled her eyes.

"No. I always wanted us to get a place."

Miranda was stunned. "You... Really?"

Jack nodded. She looked at Miranda like Miranda held the key to something, but what? What could she possibly have that would appeal to Jack? She had no idea. No idea.  

"Cookie will live happy there," Jack added, sounding soft and affectionate, in a way that made Miranda's heart beat faster.

"Cookie?" she asked, though she knew who Jack meant.

"The cat we're going to buy."

Miranda looked back at the ball of fur that was so obviously thinking it was better than everyone present in the shelter. It really looked like their kind of cat, she thought, feeling amused despite her better judgment.

"Come on," Jack said. "Take a leap of faith."

That's what she had been doing ever since meeting Jack. That's what she had been doing when she had kissed Jack for the first time. It had worked in her favor. They were here, after all. They were alive. Jack was reaching for her hand, silently asking Miranda to trust her.

She could do that, Miranda thought. She could trust Jack.

"Alright," she said. "Alright."

 

Aggo couldn't stop talking, so much so that even Serina, who usually agreed with him, looked eager for the blissful moment when he would shut up. Miranda read a note she had gotten from Kaidan about Grissom Academy and the arrival of new biotic students. It looked promising. She closed her datapad and tried to pay attention to Aggo's speech.

That's when her omni-tool flashed red. A new message. She looked at her datapad once again and couldn't hide her smile upon seeing the picture that Jack sent to her.

It was Cookie, being held by Jack. He looked like a bored king.

“Oriana took the picture,” the message said.

Miranda smiled. She couldn't wait to go home to her family.


End file.
